Huawei is planning to launch 4G-enabled handsets within 3-6 months in India. The company says that it holds enough patents to support the technology required to bring 4G-capable handsets to the market and retail them for below Rs. 10,000.
4G internet services are increasingly gaining popularity in India with Airtel and Aircel both offering 4G network in select areas. In the next year, Reliance Jio Infocomm, BSNL, Tikona and Augere are set to launch their own 4G services. It only makes sense for customers purchasing devices that are capable of taking advantage of the extra speed provided by the 4G networks.
It makes even more sense for manufacturers to target those customers and manufacture phones that are within the budget of the mass.
Huawei’s Director for Devices Sales P Sanjeev says that his company is the largest owner of essential patents for 4G technology. The company had filed for over 12,000 patents till the August of 2014 and has entered into cross patent agreements with some of the big names in the industry including Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Alcatel, and chipmaker Qualcomm.
The company recently released 4G enabled phone, Huawei Honor Holly which it claimed sold 80,000 units. The device packs 5-inch screen with 8 megapixel rear and 2 megapixel front camera. It has a 1.3 GHz MediaTek quad-core processor and 16GB RAM. It retails for Rs. 6,999.
Huawei said that it uses technology from its own patents to introduce new features in its phone. The Honor series, for example, has a number of new features such as Quick Power Control that saves 30% of the power increasing the effective battery capacity of the device.
Huawei is also heavily invested in India as its research and development team in the country contributes to its Emotion UI, one of the many useful patents that company holds. The feature turns the phone screen into a glass mirror by enabling the phone to learn functions of any remote controller and use the phone for remotely controlling that device.
The company did not give any hint as to what the specifications of its new phones might be that will have 4G capability. But it did give away one extremely useful information: the pricing. Under Rs. 10,000, smartphones that can connect to 4G networks can have huge demand in India in the year ahead.
